THERE is nothing like a five-star horse trials to lift to spirits of Irish breeders. Last week’s Defender Burghley Horse Trials saw five Irish-breds finish in the top 10, a phenomenal feat, topped off by a third five-star win for the wonderful Ballaghmor Class.

Susan Finnerty’s analysis of the weekend on pages 94-95 highlight just how good the Irish are at breeding top level event horses; Irish-breds have won the last five renewals of Burghley and filled three of the top five places at Badminton earlier in the year.

Gerard Lynch’s Breeders’ 10 (page 93) sums up what it means to compete near the top of the leaderboard at one of the ‘Big B’s’. The breeder of Oughterard Cooley is a plasterer by trade and started off by buying two to three foals a year before buying mares to breed from. It shows that foresight, hard work and dedication can deliver results. Congratulations to the breeders of all the Irish horses who made it to Burghley this year, regardless of the result.

Dressage disappointment

On the other end of the scale, there was major disappointment for the Irish dressage team this week at the European Championships in Riesenbeck, Germany. Our hearts go out to Sorrell Klatzko who has been so desperately unlucky with Turbo. This is their second consecutive championship where they did not get to complete a test. Better days will come for this pair.

A series of unfortunate events could best describe the week when the three remaining riders all had something small go wrong to complete below their average scores and finish last of the 16 teams with any hopes of a second consecutive team Olympic qualification dashed. So we will have to wait another five years at least before seeing an Irish dressage team at an Olympic Games.

Best of luck to para dressage rider Michael Murphy who is the only Irish athlete at the para dressage European Championships, taking place at the same venue, to make the Freestyle which takes place today (Saturday). He just missed out on a bronze medal in Tuesday’s Grand Prix with Cleverboy.